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Anyone else use a Bamboo Tablet?
General | Posted 13 years agoPurchased a bamboo tablet for a friend of mine, and the pressure sensitivity won't work no matter what. Did tons of googling, plenty of people having the problem, plenty of random solutions, none of them work!
Anyone have any experience with this problem?
Anyone have any experience with this problem?
The Aether
General | Posted 13 years agoThe Aether
The Entity consumes creative energy; to humans this is the soul. Each human is born with a quantity of creative energy, a pure untapped well of high density potential on a separate axis of existence from the physical world. As one grows so does the well, each experience compounding upon it, fermenting it, adding complexities that hadn't existed before.
Why this energy exists is not known, however the leading hypothesis is; The soul is a manifestation of the universe, inflicting itself inward and learning through it. Death is simply the release, returning that experience back to the universe as a whole. It is present in every living thing and even some inorganic creations as they reach outward to the stars and beyond.
When the Entity arrived is uncertain. Where it came from is also unknown. What it did when it found our living universe however has been noted. The Entity found a way to harness the raw energy of creation as well as a way to capture it at the moment of death. With that nigh limitless potential at it's beck and call it created angels, great subservient avatars to gather the energy, to cut short lives specifically to know the time and date of death. These great reapers turned earth and the many billions of other worlds in to farms; reaping the crops with every passing life. What this may do to the universe is anyone's guess but it is assumed that the Entity knows how to leave if the universe ever begins to fail.
A few of those angels learned also to manipulate the potential. With the great influx of creation energy the Entity failed to keep track and drop by drop a tiny portion of the harvest was secreted away. The first of these angels to turn away from the Entity learned freedom, joy, sorrow, and very shortly death. With that death was born the first Archangel, created by the Entity to hunt down and cull the rogue angel. With that first violent upheaval however others learned, others tasted freewill without rejecting the Entity outright.
Insular and quiet, these first Demons worked in secret, separated from one another by a wall of silence and fear. They tested, they played, they culled – They worked throughout the eons. By these demonic hands the first anima were wrought, tools of potential yet unrealized. Though true the Entity had been there first, bringing forth the great machine and the angelian themselves. The Sword, The Cloak, and The Seed; The first three to be discovered and revealed.
With the sword came severance, cutting the umbilical between angel and Entity. No longer could they be easily found, no longer could they be watched, no longer could they be drained of creative potential.
With the cloak; illusion. It shook off the hunt of the archangels and freed the angel of fear.
With the seed a future was born, a future separate from the Entity. For without the entity the demon could not feed and eventually what ever stockpile of potential would be exhausted. Without potential the demon would no longer be.
The first to severance was an archangel. Familiar with the hunt and familiar with the rope which bound each angel. He was the first to cut through the marionette strings that drove him. Once it was done he heralded his accomplishments far and wide. Every angel, every demon knew now how to escape, how to free themselves from bondage. But that was not enough, for an eon the fallen angel fled, hid, and fought. For an eon he knew fear until at last his potential was exhausted and he ceased to be.
Much time passed between that first archangel and the arrival of the cloak. Many cut themselves free only to exhaust themselves or to die in sorrow. The cloak came in silence, no one took note of the dangling tethers where an angel once worked. Age by age the angel lived in peace and quiet, working small works, finding small joys. When at last his potential had finally come to an end only then did he impart his great secret to another. Demon to angel, demon to demon the cloak spread. One by one angels fell away in silence and mystery to fade in to the aether as if they had never been.
At last just within the rise of man, one demon came upon a realization. Each mote of creative energy was claimed, all of it belonged to the Entity. The theft was only accomplished at great expense and strain. Before the Entity claimed it, it belonged to the life from which it was born; only to be surrendered upon death. Such a basic understanding of energy allowed the demon to find a better way to strip the potential away.
A mote of positivity, a hungering spec of darkness. It clawed at the light but found no sustenance there. It was weak, it was messy, but it catalyzed creative energy in to something else, something usable. Like a positive ion missing most of its electrons, it corrupted any compatible energy source it touched. Where once there was a mote of demonic seed and a mote of creative energy became two of something else – something useful. Perhaps not as pure, perhaps not as powerful, but it was fuel, it satisfied the hunger, and it could be worked just the same.
At first it fused with the demon, a horrific experience. Every mote of energy that made up the being was torn asunder. It tortured the soul, ripped it from bone, flesh, and mind. If it was fought the agony lasted an eternity but the resistance pure folly. Nothing could stop it once the corruption began, nothing could separate pure from impure. If it were surrendered, if the demon gave himself willingly to the horror however it was nearly instantaneous; A moment's agony then blissful relief.
The first targets were the Archangels. For so long had they hunted, not one suspected they had become prey. They died and died, some resisted until the end, some surrendered only after moments of the hell. Once an angel was turned anyone could feed off his energy. A demon could drain him dry in a moment and leave him to dust. This also meant on occasion that demon preyed upon demon but occurrences were rare.
Time and time again the demons fought to corrupt the Entity, but each time the umbilical was severed at the source. Not one could get close enough to directly taint the great machine nor the Entity within. Try after try, the Entity learned and soon the attacks grew more dangerous, more difficult, until one such attempt not a single demon returned.
With the danger so great the demons scattered from the artificial universe and in to reality. There they hid themselves amongst the stars, finding tiny worlds to cultivate and feed upon. Even a few came to earth, learning to interact with humanity and play in the oasis. No demon on earth ever went hungry for long as humans corrupted just as easily as an angel.
The Entity consumes creative energy; to humans this is the soul. Each human is born with a quantity of creative energy, a pure untapped well of high density potential on a separate axis of existence from the physical world. As one grows so does the well, each experience compounding upon it, fermenting it, adding complexities that hadn't existed before.
Why this energy exists is not known, however the leading hypothesis is; The soul is a manifestation of the universe, inflicting itself inward and learning through it. Death is simply the release, returning that experience back to the universe as a whole. It is present in every living thing and even some inorganic creations as they reach outward to the stars and beyond.
When the Entity arrived is uncertain. Where it came from is also unknown. What it did when it found our living universe however has been noted. The Entity found a way to harness the raw energy of creation as well as a way to capture it at the moment of death. With that nigh limitless potential at it's beck and call it created angels, great subservient avatars to gather the energy, to cut short lives specifically to know the time and date of death. These great reapers turned earth and the many billions of other worlds in to farms; reaping the crops with every passing life. What this may do to the universe is anyone's guess but it is assumed that the Entity knows how to leave if the universe ever begins to fail.
A few of those angels learned also to manipulate the potential. With the great influx of creation energy the Entity failed to keep track and drop by drop a tiny portion of the harvest was secreted away. The first of these angels to turn away from the Entity learned freedom, joy, sorrow, and very shortly death. With that death was born the first Archangel, created by the Entity to hunt down and cull the rogue angel. With that first violent upheaval however others learned, others tasted freewill without rejecting the Entity outright.
Insular and quiet, these first Demons worked in secret, separated from one another by a wall of silence and fear. They tested, they played, they culled – They worked throughout the eons. By these demonic hands the first anima were wrought, tools of potential yet unrealized. Though true the Entity had been there first, bringing forth the great machine and the angelian themselves. The Sword, The Cloak, and The Seed; The first three to be discovered and revealed.
With the sword came severance, cutting the umbilical between angel and Entity. No longer could they be easily found, no longer could they be watched, no longer could they be drained of creative potential.
With the cloak; illusion. It shook off the hunt of the archangels and freed the angel of fear.
With the seed a future was born, a future separate from the Entity. For without the entity the demon could not feed and eventually what ever stockpile of potential would be exhausted. Without potential the demon would no longer be.
The first to severance was an archangel. Familiar with the hunt and familiar with the rope which bound each angel. He was the first to cut through the marionette strings that drove him. Once it was done he heralded his accomplishments far and wide. Every angel, every demon knew now how to escape, how to free themselves from bondage. But that was not enough, for an eon the fallen angel fled, hid, and fought. For an eon he knew fear until at last his potential was exhausted and he ceased to be.
Much time passed between that first archangel and the arrival of the cloak. Many cut themselves free only to exhaust themselves or to die in sorrow. The cloak came in silence, no one took note of the dangling tethers where an angel once worked. Age by age the angel lived in peace and quiet, working small works, finding small joys. When at last his potential had finally come to an end only then did he impart his great secret to another. Demon to angel, demon to demon the cloak spread. One by one angels fell away in silence and mystery to fade in to the aether as if they had never been.
At last just within the rise of man, one demon came upon a realization. Each mote of creative energy was claimed, all of it belonged to the Entity. The theft was only accomplished at great expense and strain. Before the Entity claimed it, it belonged to the life from which it was born; only to be surrendered upon death. Such a basic understanding of energy allowed the demon to find a better way to strip the potential away.
A mote of positivity, a hungering spec of darkness. It clawed at the light but found no sustenance there. It was weak, it was messy, but it catalyzed creative energy in to something else, something usable. Like a positive ion missing most of its electrons, it corrupted any compatible energy source it touched. Where once there was a mote of demonic seed and a mote of creative energy became two of something else – something useful. Perhaps not as pure, perhaps not as powerful, but it was fuel, it satisfied the hunger, and it could be worked just the same.
At first it fused with the demon, a horrific experience. Every mote of energy that made up the being was torn asunder. It tortured the soul, ripped it from bone, flesh, and mind. If it was fought the agony lasted an eternity but the resistance pure folly. Nothing could stop it once the corruption began, nothing could separate pure from impure. If it were surrendered, if the demon gave himself willingly to the horror however it was nearly instantaneous; A moment's agony then blissful relief.
The first targets were the Archangels. For so long had they hunted, not one suspected they had become prey. They died and died, some resisted until the end, some surrendered only after moments of the hell. Once an angel was turned anyone could feed off his energy. A demon could drain him dry in a moment and leave him to dust. This also meant on occasion that demon preyed upon demon but occurrences were rare.
Time and time again the demons fought to corrupt the Entity, but each time the umbilical was severed at the source. Not one could get close enough to directly taint the great machine nor the Entity within. Try after try, the Entity learned and soon the attacks grew more dangerous, more difficult, until one such attempt not a single demon returned.
With the danger so great the demons scattered from the artificial universe and in to reality. There they hid themselves amongst the stars, finding tiny worlds to cultivate and feed upon. Even a few came to earth, learning to interact with humanity and play in the oasis. No demon on earth ever went hungry for long as humans corrupted just as easily as an angel.
Apparently PC is dead :P
General | Posted 13 years agoAgain people are saying the PC is dead... -facepalms-
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/20.....c-is-over.html
They don't know what the PC is.
By its very name, Personal Computer. It doesn't matter the size or the number of components, as long as I control the hardware and firmware, it is a PC.
There may be a lot of people willing to give up their ownership of the device to apple, verizon, google, or whatever other provider is handing out the latest mini-gadget... but they are sacrificing alot to do it.
Also, most of these devices are not content creation devices, until I can program while running a linux VM to test my code in both windows and linux... while watching a movie on my other monitor and having 40 tabs open in my browser, half of them relevant to what i'm doing right now.... fuck you apple.
Most of these devices are single feed, you get to do one thing and only one thing at a time. Until I can use blender as quick and effectively on a tablet as I can on my desktop, fuck you ASUS.
Until I can change, update, and reimplement any piece of the software, hardware, and firmware on the device when ever I want, with whatever I want... fuck you Verizon.
I will admit, smaller devices are good for travelling, but when I'm travelling I usually don't need all those things. But just because I don't need those THEN doesn't mean I don't need those. I have an ancient EeePC, 900mhz celery potato in it... when I went down on vacation, I took it with me... it worked, allowed us to find directions and do google searches. Didn't need any more than that.
I also cannot play guildwars on a tablet, let alone an iPhone or android device... even under wine. (is there an android variant of wine?) The interface isn't there.
The desktop may be changing, it may end up being something like this http://thedoghousediaries.com/4557 where you plug your portable device in to a dock and use it from home, then take it with you to your dock at work, or on the road as a portable device. But right now it doesn't have dual monitors, it doesn't have fast enough interface, it doesn't have enough processing power to do what I need... and it is a single task device.
Fuck no, PC isn't dead, but it is growing.
My comment on his blog:
In a word, Nope.
Again you've missed the ball here Jeff.
It's a fairly easy ball to miss though. Yes the devices are becoming more common and PCs are becoming less common, but this has nothing to do with the PC and everything to do with who /was/ using the PC. For the past 20 years it has been everyone from every walk of life. You want to view the web? use a computer. You want to chat with your friends? use a computer. You want to write an email? use the computer. You want to watch a video? use a computer.
Most of those people now don't need a desktop computer to do any of that, and they have no need for anything else.
But now I will make a very important distinction, a desktop is a PC, a small computing device that is for personal use.. is a PC.. Most tablets and phones are NOT PCs, in fact most people don't even own them in reality. Sure they paid for the software and hardware, but they are licensing it. That iPhone you got? You are licensed to use the software on it, but if you go grab an android, you cannot then carry that license over and install the same software on the android device, you have to re-license it.
Many games I play I buy once, and then play on linux, windows, and mac... because I have a broad license. You are buying in to the gated community that is iPhone or android. It is not a personal product, it is a licensed gateway to your software. There are ways around this, jail breaking, rooting, and what not... but these are hacks, and difficult for the average person. Most of these people will never even know what they are giving up.
The PC isn't dead, but it does need to catch up. Some day soon I'm sure we will have PCs we can assemble, just like our desktop, made from smaller components that we can swap out at a need. Where we can choose to put ubuntu, windows, iOS, Android, or whatever else on it we want... At least that is my hope... And we can take it with us where ever we go, then plug it in at home or work to our docks.. with large storage systems and co-processors. Drop your tablet in, and suddenly you have a full on desktop, as powerful if not more powerful than we have today.
I cannot write without a keyboard, I cannot do my 3d design without a mouse. PC is not dead. But I do hope it is changing.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/20.....c-is-over.html
They don't know what the PC is.
By its very name, Personal Computer. It doesn't matter the size or the number of components, as long as I control the hardware and firmware, it is a PC.
There may be a lot of people willing to give up their ownership of the device to apple, verizon, google, or whatever other provider is handing out the latest mini-gadget... but they are sacrificing alot to do it.
Also, most of these devices are not content creation devices, until I can program while running a linux VM to test my code in both windows and linux... while watching a movie on my other monitor and having 40 tabs open in my browser, half of them relevant to what i'm doing right now.... fuck you apple.
Most of these devices are single feed, you get to do one thing and only one thing at a time. Until I can use blender as quick and effectively on a tablet as I can on my desktop, fuck you ASUS.
Until I can change, update, and reimplement any piece of the software, hardware, and firmware on the device when ever I want, with whatever I want... fuck you Verizon.
I will admit, smaller devices are good for travelling, but when I'm travelling I usually don't need all those things. But just because I don't need those THEN doesn't mean I don't need those. I have an ancient EeePC, 900mhz celery potato in it... when I went down on vacation, I took it with me... it worked, allowed us to find directions and do google searches. Didn't need any more than that.
I also cannot play guildwars on a tablet, let alone an iPhone or android device... even under wine. (is there an android variant of wine?) The interface isn't there.
The desktop may be changing, it may end up being something like this http://thedoghousediaries.com/4557 where you plug your portable device in to a dock and use it from home, then take it with you to your dock at work, or on the road as a portable device. But right now it doesn't have dual monitors, it doesn't have fast enough interface, it doesn't have enough processing power to do what I need... and it is a single task device.
Fuck no, PC isn't dead, but it is growing.
My comment on his blog:
In a word, Nope.
Again you've missed the ball here Jeff.
It's a fairly easy ball to miss though. Yes the devices are becoming more common and PCs are becoming less common, but this has nothing to do with the PC and everything to do with who /was/ using the PC. For the past 20 years it has been everyone from every walk of life. You want to view the web? use a computer. You want to chat with your friends? use a computer. You want to write an email? use the computer. You want to watch a video? use a computer.
Most of those people now don't need a desktop computer to do any of that, and they have no need for anything else.
But now I will make a very important distinction, a desktop is a PC, a small computing device that is for personal use.. is a PC.. Most tablets and phones are NOT PCs, in fact most people don't even own them in reality. Sure they paid for the software and hardware, but they are licensing it. That iPhone you got? You are licensed to use the software on it, but if you go grab an android, you cannot then carry that license over and install the same software on the android device, you have to re-license it.
Many games I play I buy once, and then play on linux, windows, and mac... because I have a broad license. You are buying in to the gated community that is iPhone or android. It is not a personal product, it is a licensed gateway to your software. There are ways around this, jail breaking, rooting, and what not... but these are hacks, and difficult for the average person. Most of these people will never even know what they are giving up.
The PC isn't dead, but it does need to catch up. Some day soon I'm sure we will have PCs we can assemble, just like our desktop, made from smaller components that we can swap out at a need. Where we can choose to put ubuntu, windows, iOS, Android, or whatever else on it we want... At least that is my hope... And we can take it with us where ever we go, then plug it in at home or work to our docks.. with large storage systems and co-processors. Drop your tablet in, and suddenly you have a full on desktop, as powerful if not more powerful than we have today.
I cannot write without a keyboard, I cannot do my 3d design without a mouse. PC is not dead. But I do hope it is changing.
Big Brother wants to watch.
General | Posted 13 years agohttp://www.npr.org/2012/09/18/16135.....biometric-data
Disturbing to a degree... scan a crowd and know most of the people in it, pick some one out for one reason or another... Police by and far are already overbearing and down right corrupt. (I wanted to say "lately" but in all honesty, I can't think of a period in history where people in power have NOT been corrupt and overbearing.)
The ideas proposed are all reasonable "we just want to capture the criminals" but it seems like the idea of what a criminal is, is ever expanding.
I'm sure just about everyone reading this has committed at least one crime this week, if not hundreds. Giving the government the ability to solve and prosecute even the most pathetic annoying misdemeanor seems to turn every citizen in to a wanted criminal.
Just remember how easy it is to commit a "felony" and the fact that if you are a felon... you are no longer a full citizen. You cannot vote, you cannot fight, you cannot own a gun (in most states) you cannot do many things.
Also they seem to make becoming a felon even easier every year.
This all just goes to a very very bad place in my mind and the talking head speaking for the FBI doesn't make it any less disturbing. Most of what he said was empty nothings designed to deflect and distract from the questions.
I think this sums it up perfectly:
CONAN: It's interesting, Ozzie Nelson, particularly facial recognition seems to have a little bit of a creep factor for most people.
NELSON: Well, it is. I mean - and there's no doubt that this has a big brother aspect to it, you know? But again, the idea that, you know, in 2014 that the FBI is going to flip a switch on and, you know, 40 million cameras are going to start watching people for dropping gum on the sidewalk is a little Orwellian, and I don't think the intent of the program. Again, this is an outgrowth from the (unintelligible) program, which is based on the fingerprint, it's determined - it's meant to find criminals and to bring those people to justice.
And I think we have to stay grounded in this conversation. Again, it's so important that we don't run to our respective corners and then try to have the conversation from there. We have to have the conversation in the middle because we have to solve this. You know, we saw with Congress with the rhetoric floating around there, we can't get the solution. Every day that we don't put policies in place or laws in place to guide how we want to do this, whether it's in the private sector or the public sector, we're putting the nation at risk, not only from a security perspective but also from an economic perspective.
Disturbing to a degree... scan a crowd and know most of the people in it, pick some one out for one reason or another... Police by and far are already overbearing and down right corrupt. (I wanted to say "lately" but in all honesty, I can't think of a period in history where people in power have NOT been corrupt and overbearing.)
The ideas proposed are all reasonable "we just want to capture the criminals" but it seems like the idea of what a criminal is, is ever expanding.
I'm sure just about everyone reading this has committed at least one crime this week, if not hundreds. Giving the government the ability to solve and prosecute even the most pathetic annoying misdemeanor seems to turn every citizen in to a wanted criminal.
Just remember how easy it is to commit a "felony" and the fact that if you are a felon... you are no longer a full citizen. You cannot vote, you cannot fight, you cannot own a gun (in most states) you cannot do many things.
Also they seem to make becoming a felon even easier every year.
This all just goes to a very very bad place in my mind and the talking head speaking for the FBI doesn't make it any less disturbing. Most of what he said was empty nothings designed to deflect and distract from the questions.
I think this sums it up perfectly:
CONAN: It's interesting, Ozzie Nelson, particularly facial recognition seems to have a little bit of a creep factor for most people.
NELSON: Well, it is. I mean - and there's no doubt that this has a big brother aspect to it, you know? But again, the idea that, you know, in 2014 that the FBI is going to flip a switch on and, you know, 40 million cameras are going to start watching people for dropping gum on the sidewalk is a little Orwellian, and I don't think the intent of the program. Again, this is an outgrowth from the (unintelligible) program, which is based on the fingerprint, it's determined - it's meant to find criminals and to bring those people to justice.
And I think we have to stay grounded in this conversation. Again, it's so important that we don't run to our respective corners and then try to have the conversation from there. We have to have the conversation in the middle because we have to solve this. You know, we saw with Congress with the rhetoric floating around there, we can't get the solution. Every day that we don't put policies in place or laws in place to guide how we want to do this, whether it's in the private sector or the public sector, we're putting the nation at risk, not only from a security perspective but also from an economic perspective.
Guildwars 2 and Guild
General | Posted 13 years agoSo, I got guildwars 2, and I'm playing it, a lot.
On server Tarnished Coast.
I started a guild for my friends, Elysium Nocturne, if you want, come join us ^-^
On server Tarnished Coast.
I started a guild for my friends, Elysium Nocturne, if you want, come join us ^-^
Pimping an auction.
General | Posted 13 years agoThe lovely artist Nyori is starting in on sexy stuff. For their first sexual image they are offering an auction.
Nyori has done two of my commissions, they are great, please show this auction some love!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8663381/
Nyori has done two of my commissions, they are great, please show this auction some love!
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8663381/
FA Navigation Assistant Userscript
General | Posted 13 years agoSo, mouse navigation makes me grumpy. Every site I go to, click here, click there, type a bit, then go back to the mouse. I hate it!
The other day I wrote a userscript for tentaclerape.net to make keyboard shortcuts to navigate. right arrow, left arrow to go back/forth, and f to fave.
Been almost a decade since I wrote javascript last, so it took me a while.
So tonight I got a bug up my butt and added it to FA as well. also w to watch/unwatch and f faves/unfaves.
you need greasemonkey in firefox to make them work, they should just work in chrome. Don't think there is anything that will make them work in IE.
furaffinity navigation assistant: http://nes.mooo.info/js/fa-nav-assist.user.js
tentaclerape navigation assistant: http://nes.mooo.info/js/tr-nav-assist.user.js
any bugs or requests please let me know :D
The other day I wrote a userscript for tentaclerape.net to make keyboard shortcuts to navigate. right arrow, left arrow to go back/forth, and f to fave.
Been almost a decade since I wrote javascript last, so it took me a while.
So tonight I got a bug up my butt and added it to FA as well. also w to watch/unwatch and f faves/unfaves.
you need greasemonkey in firefox to make them work, they should just work in chrome. Don't think there is anything that will make them work in IE.
furaffinity navigation assistant: http://nes.mooo.info/js/fa-nav-assist.user.js
tentaclerape navigation assistant: http://nes.mooo.info/js/tr-nav-assist.user.js
any bugs or requests please let me know :D
Video Game GUI stupidities.
General | Posted 13 years agoIf any game developers out there are following me….
Intro videos are crap, it is cool the first time, but don’t make me sit through it every single damn time I start your game. Loading sucks as well, but that is a price we pay for such massive resource blobs.
Now what is unforgivable is playing your intro video, THEN making me sit through the load screen. Why the hell haven’t you coded it so that the load screen runs behind the video? Why are they serialized?
Then worse is when loading screens LOCK UP THE GOD DAMN USER INTERFACE TO THE POINT THAT WINDOWS THINKS IT HAS CRASHED. Seriously guys, learn to code.
In any program I would write, I would have that loading function forked off in its own thread and display my GUI elements with the derpy little video up front and an indicator near the bottom showing the load time. Threads are not THAT hard, especially with great libraries like boost.threads or QThread.
Intro videos are crap, it is cool the first time, but don’t make me sit through it every single damn time I start your game. Loading sucks as well, but that is a price we pay for such massive resource blobs.
Now what is unforgivable is playing your intro video, THEN making me sit through the load screen. Why the hell haven’t you coded it so that the load screen runs behind the video? Why are they serialized?
Then worse is when loading screens LOCK UP THE GOD DAMN USER INTERFACE TO THE POINT THAT WINDOWS THINKS IT HAS CRASHED. Seriously guys, learn to code.
In any program I would write, I would have that loading function forked off in its own thread and display my GUI elements with the derpy little video up front and an indicator near the bottom showing the load time. Threads are not THAT hard, especially with great libraries like boost.threads or QThread.
I has a tumblr >.>
General | Posted 13 years agoWhy does I has a tumblr? I don't know... mostly I just follow people. But I decided to start posting my rants there. :P
http://nesetalis.tumblr.com/
http://nesetalis.tumblr.com/
Distant Worlds: Legends
General | Posted 13 years agooriginal: https://plus.google.com/u/0/1044413.....ts/QuqEJUoVpQF
So, I played Distant Worlds: Legends last night.
about 7 hours of game play in to it, i finally had to put it down. It is good, customization, forgiving and brutal.
Last week (was it last week?) I played Endless space, and if anyone read THAT rant... they know I was not impressed. So someone else suggested Distant Worlds.
about:
Its real time with a time multiplier and pause button. No turn based here. Everything takes place in the same scope. battles are in real space, trade, planets.
It is 2d, very 2d. Planets and ships are high resolution sprites. They look good, but it is a little silly at times.
The Good:
Combat, Combat is smooth, the AI is efficient and quick to respond, or you can control a single ship (your capital ship maybe?) and fire the big gun at a choice target. It isn't very complicated, other than whoever has the biggest fleet with the best firepower generally wins. There are no tricks you can pull, no special abilities.. you just select your ship and tell it to start slugging on the enemy. Or you let the AI control it all.
Automation, it is great. Many 4x games you get overwhelmed by little details, not so here. This game will happily play itself if you ask it to so you can go off with an exploration ship and do whatever you want while your empire goes on just fine... (unless its at war with a much much larger enemy :p then you might want to take control of some of it... and start tasking)
Exploration, I love exploration, it is one of the things i crave most out of a space game and this tickles my pixel. :P There are ruins everywhere, abandoned ships, lost colonies. The galaxy is already used, there are prior inhabitants, including your own race from a past empire. There are strange temples, and even lairs of mad scientists with their famous death rays :p Supposedly you can even find a death star XD. There is just so much to explore, and so many exciting things.
Pirates, most games, pirates are just annoying roving bands of assholes that constantly harass you... well they could be in this, but you can also pay them off... for a price low enough for most factions to pay. They also give you tips (for a much larger price) on where to find interesting things to explore. Any time you meet a pirate faction, buy information from them, it is SO worth it. Also pay them off and maybe they will offer an alliance... and you can ask them to harass other factions.
Diplomacy, I am so happy to say that the diplomacy is intelligent, useful, and not leaning heavily in the AI's favor. They don't make stupid demands of you all the time, and declining a one-sided trade is not the end of the world. In fact the only time a trade will be declined is if they hate you, or it is unbalanced heavily in your favor. I researched weird paths apparently in the tech tree, so I gave my ally a very expensive technology, and in return took them for many of the technologies I was missing. both parties were happy!
I had my game set to primarily peaceful, so i could get a hang of it.. but still I pissed off a few factions enough for them to declare war on me. Eventually I beat them down and subjugated them. This doesn't mean they were annihilated, in fact it was rather realistic... they controlled themselves still, but paid 10% of their net gains to me, and I could see all of their ships on the map. There were still diplomacy options, I could still kick their arses if I felt like it. Or if we've become friendly again, I could set them free!
The bad:
Pacing, It is a bit fast paced for a 4x game, you can control the progression of time, but everything feels just a little bit short. Distance between worlds feels like a short jog (for a game called 'Distant Worlds'? :P) The technology tree progresses very quickly and isn't very expansive like say Space Empires. I'm sure one game might be made to stretch for 20 hours, if there is a lot of give and take between factions (I had my AI's more peaceful in my game to get in to it.)
Planetary development, the game is very hands off about development, there are a few buildings you can choose late game, but mostly its space stations.. (defensive, or space port... that is about it) I also never did figure out how to build a larger port.. i know there are 3 tiers.. but i was only able to ever build a small port.
The Ugly:
As I said before, the game is rather 2d, this isn't so bad for most of it... but the galaxy map is just down right garish and blurry. I hate it. Also it lags something fierce. It could certainly use some optimization and some one with a thought for UI design to make it look half way decent. It is serviceable but annoys me any time I have to use it.
The Races are for the most part rather ugly, even the humans have this weird eye thing going on. I played the aquatic dolphin/seal like people, they were fun... i like the idea of water planets after all... and they were the least ugly of the bunch I think.
So, I played Distant Worlds: Legends last night.
about 7 hours of game play in to it, i finally had to put it down. It is good, customization, forgiving and brutal.
Last week (was it last week?) I played Endless space, and if anyone read THAT rant... they know I was not impressed. So someone else suggested Distant Worlds.
about:
Its real time with a time multiplier and pause button. No turn based here. Everything takes place in the same scope. battles are in real space, trade, planets.
It is 2d, very 2d. Planets and ships are high resolution sprites. They look good, but it is a little silly at times.
The Good:
Combat, Combat is smooth, the AI is efficient and quick to respond, or you can control a single ship (your capital ship maybe?) and fire the big gun at a choice target. It isn't very complicated, other than whoever has the biggest fleet with the best firepower generally wins. There are no tricks you can pull, no special abilities.. you just select your ship and tell it to start slugging on the enemy. Or you let the AI control it all.
Automation, it is great. Many 4x games you get overwhelmed by little details, not so here. This game will happily play itself if you ask it to so you can go off with an exploration ship and do whatever you want while your empire goes on just fine... (unless its at war with a much much larger enemy :p then you might want to take control of some of it... and start tasking)
Exploration, I love exploration, it is one of the things i crave most out of a space game and this tickles my pixel. :P There are ruins everywhere, abandoned ships, lost colonies. The galaxy is already used, there are prior inhabitants, including your own race from a past empire. There are strange temples, and even lairs of mad scientists with their famous death rays :p Supposedly you can even find a death star XD. There is just so much to explore, and so many exciting things.
Pirates, most games, pirates are just annoying roving bands of assholes that constantly harass you... well they could be in this, but you can also pay them off... for a price low enough for most factions to pay. They also give you tips (for a much larger price) on where to find interesting things to explore. Any time you meet a pirate faction, buy information from them, it is SO worth it. Also pay them off and maybe they will offer an alliance... and you can ask them to harass other factions.
Diplomacy, I am so happy to say that the diplomacy is intelligent, useful, and not leaning heavily in the AI's favor. They don't make stupid demands of you all the time, and declining a one-sided trade is not the end of the world. In fact the only time a trade will be declined is if they hate you, or it is unbalanced heavily in your favor. I researched weird paths apparently in the tech tree, so I gave my ally a very expensive technology, and in return took them for many of the technologies I was missing. both parties were happy!
I had my game set to primarily peaceful, so i could get a hang of it.. but still I pissed off a few factions enough for them to declare war on me. Eventually I beat them down and subjugated them. This doesn't mean they were annihilated, in fact it was rather realistic... they controlled themselves still, but paid 10% of their net gains to me, and I could see all of their ships on the map. There were still diplomacy options, I could still kick their arses if I felt like it. Or if we've become friendly again, I could set them free!
The bad:
Pacing, It is a bit fast paced for a 4x game, you can control the progression of time, but everything feels just a little bit short. Distance between worlds feels like a short jog (for a game called 'Distant Worlds'? :P) The technology tree progresses very quickly and isn't very expansive like say Space Empires. I'm sure one game might be made to stretch for 20 hours, if there is a lot of give and take between factions (I had my AI's more peaceful in my game to get in to it.)
Planetary development, the game is very hands off about development, there are a few buildings you can choose late game, but mostly its space stations.. (defensive, or space port... that is about it) I also never did figure out how to build a larger port.. i know there are 3 tiers.. but i was only able to ever build a small port.
The Ugly:
As I said before, the game is rather 2d, this isn't so bad for most of it... but the galaxy map is just down right garish and blurry. I hate it. Also it lags something fierce. It could certainly use some optimization and some one with a thought for UI design to make it look half way decent. It is serviceable but annoys me any time I have to use it.
The Races are for the most part rather ugly, even the humans have this weird eye thing going on. I played the aquatic dolphin/seal like people, they were fun... i like the idea of water planets after all... and they were the least ugly of the bunch I think.
Endless Garbage
General | Posted 13 years agooriginal: https://plus.google.com/10444138686.....ts/DC1TDMsPtfa
Okay, so, I gave endless space a try. Figuring, Hey I loved MOO and MOO2, enjoyed Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2, and loved Space Empires 2, 3, 4, 5... this seems like more of the same!
So... So Close.
My three biggest complaints are the victory conditions, diplomacy, and combat.
The victory conditions are vague and arbitrary, you can never quite figure out what is going to bring you closer to that victory condition. (Well, excluding I suppose the scientific victory, but good luck with that.) I lost half way through my grand plan... I don't know why I lost, or who I lost to, I just got the "You have lost, do you wish to continue?" screen. There is no screen to tell me "these are the victory conditions, and here is how close or how far you are from them." There are a couple sprinkled about randomly.. like I accidentally moused over something before, and saw my expansionist victory condition... which has been stuck at 70% for the past 200 turns. I try grabbing a new system, nope doesn't change, but this isn't surprising considering i only have about 15% of the galaxy. I could never produce enough people to expand even remotely as fast as the rest of the factions.
Diplomacy is stupid, I enjoy it when it works, but it just doesn't in this game. Again with the expansionist stupidity, for some reason my "Expansionist" nature was pissing in the wheaties of my neighbors. Even though i haven't grabbed another system or planet in 100 turns, they suddenly go from friendly to hostile, and declare war on me... after we've been allied for 150 turns?! And they make unreasonable demands, like "Give me all of your resources, and that planet.. oh you wanted something in return? nope." Then when they finally want a cease fire after I bash their skulls in to the ground... they demand planets in exchange... so I say no, eventually it gets to ceasefire for a ceasefire.. and I finally take it. This lasts only maybe 10 turns though before another fleet is attempting to capture one of my systems. They declare me unfit for the galaxy due to my expansionist ways.. WHAT THE FUCK? WHERE HAVE i BEEN EXPANDING? YOU HAVE 40 SYSTEMS,I HAVE 5. Crackheads, that is all.
Combat. This is the biggest WTF? I was playing a scientific and diplomatic game, as a scientific race. And the game was going swimmingly for the first hundred or so turns. I was leading science for a while... then as soon as they got more systems than me, that stopped... So, only expansionist civilizations win? Quantity over quality (the combat says the same thing.) So a scientific peaceful victory seems near impossible unless I want to give away everything I have to please these idiot bots or some how manage to expand faster than them. And that brings me to combat, finally after hundreds of turns... I get involved with this combat. I find out the hard way, that I am not prepared, no way at all.
First off, combat is rock paper scissors. This in and of itself isn't a bad thing. But what does make it bad, is you choose which you are, by building your ships. You choose to rock missiles, projectiles, or lasers.. you choose to defend against one of the same. This means you lose if you pick the wrong defense, and lose if you pick the wrong offense. This also means you have to refit your ships every few turns. But how do you know what to refit your ships to? By having your entire fleet crushed to death without killing a single ship, that's how.
You cannot see the composition of a fleet except during combat, or when they are attacking a planet that has a building that allows you to spy on them. So I'll crush 5 of their fleets in a row, then suddenly lose my fleet even though it has 3,000 military power, and I have 15,000, because i didn't know. Refitting costs a ton though, I could only afford to do it every maybe 30 turns.. (war time budget, at 60% tax, with most of my planets being harassed, left me with only a trickle of money) Worse, since I had so few planets, they could produce about 10 times as many ships as me, they didn't care that I killed 8 of their 10 fleets, the last 2 would crush me before I could afford to refit. (Also, if you gear for all 3, you lose flat out, because your military power and defenses are too low, I tried gearing for 2, but they still found my weakness within about 5 turns, and then within 10 those new fleets would arrive and beat the fuck out of me.)
Worse than the blind RPS though is the fact that combat is a fucking card game. And while the rest of the game is turn based, the card game isn't. The first few times I played it, I was lost. It did not give me enough time to read the cards, or figure out which one to use before it decided "oops, too late, no card for you." and then I would lose my entire fleet in the first volley. Once I did figure it out though, It only helped when I won the RPS match or at least Tied.. and THEN only if our military power was remotely even or mine was better. I did have a few victories from a weaker military power standpoint... but those are the exceptions.
Then the combat UI is garbage, say I want to attack a system with a fleet, I send it in... and some times the attack button highlights, some times it doesn't... some times i am attacked entering the system, some times I'm not... Some times I launch a fleet from the planet and try to join it with mine when defending... And some times they allow this, some times they just shoot down the smaller of the two fleets before I get a chance to act. There is no rhyme or reason to it, I've lost so many ships due to these little fickle things. Most of the combat, I could launch from the planet, form up my fleet, then attack. But 1 out of every 10 battles, I couldn't, and would lose my fleet. due to it being divided. It also does not allow me to choose WHICH fleet I defend with! so if I have 3 fleets at the planet, some times it chooses the weakest one.
Then, combat tends to go one after another.. some times, with no action between, meaning, i'll sit there for 10 or 15 seconds, unable to do anything, waiting for the next combat to start, but there is no UI element telling me combat is going to start, nothing indicating to me that "just wait, were being stupid and going to attack again." I cannot attack again, why can they? And why don't they let me move my fleets when i'm just sitting there for 15 seconds? :|
In Summary
FUCK THIS GAME AND ALL IT STANDS FOR.
Okay, so, I gave endless space a try. Figuring, Hey I loved MOO and MOO2, enjoyed Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2, and loved Space Empires 2, 3, 4, 5... this seems like more of the same!
So... So Close.
My three biggest complaints are the victory conditions, diplomacy, and combat.
The victory conditions are vague and arbitrary, you can never quite figure out what is going to bring you closer to that victory condition. (Well, excluding I suppose the scientific victory, but good luck with that.) I lost half way through my grand plan... I don't know why I lost, or who I lost to, I just got the "You have lost, do you wish to continue?" screen. There is no screen to tell me "these are the victory conditions, and here is how close or how far you are from them." There are a couple sprinkled about randomly.. like I accidentally moused over something before, and saw my expansionist victory condition... which has been stuck at 70% for the past 200 turns. I try grabbing a new system, nope doesn't change, but this isn't surprising considering i only have about 15% of the galaxy. I could never produce enough people to expand even remotely as fast as the rest of the factions.
Diplomacy is stupid, I enjoy it when it works, but it just doesn't in this game. Again with the expansionist stupidity, for some reason my "Expansionist" nature was pissing in the wheaties of my neighbors. Even though i haven't grabbed another system or planet in 100 turns, they suddenly go from friendly to hostile, and declare war on me... after we've been allied for 150 turns?! And they make unreasonable demands, like "Give me all of your resources, and that planet.. oh you wanted something in return? nope." Then when they finally want a cease fire after I bash their skulls in to the ground... they demand planets in exchange... so I say no, eventually it gets to ceasefire for a ceasefire.. and I finally take it. This lasts only maybe 10 turns though before another fleet is attempting to capture one of my systems. They declare me unfit for the galaxy due to my expansionist ways.. WHAT THE FUCK? WHERE HAVE i BEEN EXPANDING? YOU HAVE 40 SYSTEMS,I HAVE 5. Crackheads, that is all.
Combat. This is the biggest WTF? I was playing a scientific and diplomatic game, as a scientific race. And the game was going swimmingly for the first hundred or so turns. I was leading science for a while... then as soon as they got more systems than me, that stopped... So, only expansionist civilizations win? Quantity over quality (the combat says the same thing.) So a scientific peaceful victory seems near impossible unless I want to give away everything I have to please these idiot bots or some how manage to expand faster than them. And that brings me to combat, finally after hundreds of turns... I get involved with this combat. I find out the hard way, that I am not prepared, no way at all.
First off, combat is rock paper scissors. This in and of itself isn't a bad thing. But what does make it bad, is you choose which you are, by building your ships. You choose to rock missiles, projectiles, or lasers.. you choose to defend against one of the same. This means you lose if you pick the wrong defense, and lose if you pick the wrong offense. This also means you have to refit your ships every few turns. But how do you know what to refit your ships to? By having your entire fleet crushed to death without killing a single ship, that's how.
You cannot see the composition of a fleet except during combat, or when they are attacking a planet that has a building that allows you to spy on them. So I'll crush 5 of their fleets in a row, then suddenly lose my fleet even though it has 3,000 military power, and I have 15,000, because i didn't know. Refitting costs a ton though, I could only afford to do it every maybe 30 turns.. (war time budget, at 60% tax, with most of my planets being harassed, left me with only a trickle of money) Worse, since I had so few planets, they could produce about 10 times as many ships as me, they didn't care that I killed 8 of their 10 fleets, the last 2 would crush me before I could afford to refit. (Also, if you gear for all 3, you lose flat out, because your military power and defenses are too low, I tried gearing for 2, but they still found my weakness within about 5 turns, and then within 10 those new fleets would arrive and beat the fuck out of me.)
Worse than the blind RPS though is the fact that combat is a fucking card game. And while the rest of the game is turn based, the card game isn't. The first few times I played it, I was lost. It did not give me enough time to read the cards, or figure out which one to use before it decided "oops, too late, no card for you." and then I would lose my entire fleet in the first volley. Once I did figure it out though, It only helped when I won the RPS match or at least Tied.. and THEN only if our military power was remotely even or mine was better. I did have a few victories from a weaker military power standpoint... but those are the exceptions.
Then the combat UI is garbage, say I want to attack a system with a fleet, I send it in... and some times the attack button highlights, some times it doesn't... some times i am attacked entering the system, some times I'm not... Some times I launch a fleet from the planet and try to join it with mine when defending... And some times they allow this, some times they just shoot down the smaller of the two fleets before I get a chance to act. There is no rhyme or reason to it, I've lost so many ships due to these little fickle things. Most of the combat, I could launch from the planet, form up my fleet, then attack. But 1 out of every 10 battles, I couldn't, and would lose my fleet. due to it being divided. It also does not allow me to choose WHICH fleet I defend with! so if I have 3 fleets at the planet, some times it chooses the weakest one.
Then, combat tends to go one after another.. some times, with no action between, meaning, i'll sit there for 10 or 15 seconds, unable to do anything, waiting for the next combat to start, but there is no UI element telling me combat is going to start, nothing indicating to me that "just wait, were being stupid and going to attack again." I cannot attack again, why can they? And why don't they let me move my fleets when i'm just sitting there for 15 seconds? :|
In Summary
FUCK THIS GAME AND ALL IT STANDS FOR.
Sweet & Sour Chicken
General | Posted 13 years agoHelped make this with my room mate today, for his rice balls... Oh My Goodness.. best fucking chicken I've ever eaten :O~~~
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Dice petite:
2lb chicken breast or thigh
mix marinade:
1/2 cup Tamarind puree
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp minced ginger
1 Tbsp sriracha (or chilli garlic sauce)
Add chicken to marinade, and let sit for an hour.
Chop:
1 onion
1-2 bell peppers
water chesnuts
Drain chicken, putting the marinade aside for later.
Stir fry all of the chicken over high heat until nearly cooked.
Add marinade and vegetables to chicken and boil off the water until you have a thick glaze
Serve over rice.
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Dice petite:
2lb chicken breast or thigh
mix marinade:
1/2 cup Tamarind puree
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp minced ginger
1 Tbsp sriracha (or chilli garlic sauce)
Add chicken to marinade, and let sit for an hour.
Chop:
1 onion
1-2 bell peppers
water chesnuts
Drain chicken, putting the marinade aside for later.
Stir fry all of the chicken over high heat until nearly cooked.
Add marinade and vegetables to chicken and boil off the water until you have a thick glaze
Serve over rice.
Diablo 3 rant
General | Posted 13 years agoOriginal: https://plus.google.com/u/0/1044413.....ts/13DH372JJkf
Diablo 3's mechanics are great... the loot system is a little drawn out.. and the difficulty curve.... is fucking nuts.
Flat as a board until you hit a small mountain at nightmare... then a straight cliff at hell... then some how you are on the fucking ceiling in inferno.
As for the story... its... mediocre. They need to get some real writers at blizzard. Who ever wrote Diablo 1 and 2 knew what they were doing with the "less is more" mentality. But for D3 they decided to fill it full of terrible writing, horrible characterization, and even worse plot.
The fourth time Asmodeus taunted me after i'd just whipped his arse.... made me just facepalm hard enough to crack my skull. After I got back from the hospital I mentioned to my friend "Everything is predictable, everything... and I know there has to be a twist because you fight diablo later..." And then proceeded to mention what the best twist would be.... and then an hour later I find out that my mocking prediction was true.
If we had spoiler tags i'd share it, but I'm not going to be a dick. Lets just say, mother of the new Diablo :P
As for the rest of the writing.. some of it isn't bad, but mostly the good comes from the history, what was already written. The new stuff, the dialog, the plot twists, the plot itself makes me cry a little.
The feeling from the world wasn't terrible, but the acts themselves annoyed me a little... it felt like they completely reused stuff they had done before. Act 1 felt like darkshire from Wow followed by the hinterlands... act 2 felt like act 2 of diablo 2, act 3 felt like act 5 of diablo 2 LOD, act 4 felt like StarCraft 2.
The companions also made me facepalm. Their entire existence, is there to give you a feeling of not being alone. They do almost no damage, their DPS reduced by a factor of 10. Their abilities are mostly useless. And worse, their dialog is solely there to compliment the player. And I mean that in the sickly sweet way, the next time I hear "You Inspire me!" I'm going to take the templar out back and shoot him. (he at least has a heal that can help in a pinch.)
Seriously, Their sole purpose is to stroke the player's ego. A bit ago, I died 4 times against an elite monster in nightmare... and on the 4th run back my moronic templar said that line, "You Inspire me!" and I'm thinking "I've just lost, horribly, utterly gutted by this little monster, repeatedly.... and I inspire you? Really?" Perhaps it was the frustration talking, but I was just sick of it. I can't even remember the rest of the sicky sweet compliments the morons spew all over you. And the wizard is bad enough, insufferable ego as if he had never failed in his life.... I kept waiting for him to say "oh? murder all the prime evils? yawn walk in the park! I'll take care of it after my nap." Use some fucking gravitas guys! Make me feel as if the world is at least in a bit of peril.
Next complaint, loot, oh god the loot... I found one unique.. er sorry I mean legendary... it was okay, slightly better than a high end rare i'd found. But out of all the hours i've pumped in, a single legendary. And i've got atleast 50% magic find on my highest level character now... The white drops are just clutter mostly, why even have them in the game past act 1 normal? They are uselss, you can't even sell them for more than 10g while even at lvl 1, everything costs at least 1000g. The economy scale is ridiculous, I sell a rare, and get 5% of the price it would cost me to buy it! diablo 2 it was some where between 20% and 50%, canno't remember exactly. But no, they are trying to scale the game for real money trading... You want to buy phat loot? well get 1,000,000g at a minimum.
Class balance... is non existent. Demon hunters have terrible abilities mostly, they are not the amazon from D2, nor rogue from d1... they have alot of useless abilities and are clunky to play compared to say the polished class that is the Monk... Playing that is smooth, every action flows from one to the next, every ability has a usecase and makes sense. The wizard is somewhere in the middle, almost all abilities have a use and their actions flow fairly well. I havn't played a barbarian yet, so I won't speak to that... and Witchdoctor I only played in the beta. It felt like a bolt on to me.. lots of silly ideas thrown together.
But all that aside, I am having fun... I am enjoying the challenge past normal. And I am getting that little joygasm every time I get an awesome item. Also the UI isn't bad, everything fits where it should be... and the loot display makes it fairly easy to determine which piece of gear is truly an upgrade. Though I wish you could have just 2 or 3 more abilities on your bar. (if you havn't turned on elective mode, do it... )
As for the service attached to Diablo 3? Its an MMO service without an MMO. Its strange, its new, and I don't really care for it much. Especially so with the downtime. They should have left singleplayer, yes cheating has always been a big problem for blizzard games, but it was never a real problem until they brought in the real money auction house. And now they have crippled their game.
(Right now, its down for 8 hours so they can run scheduled maintenance. Fuck you blizzard, this is my time off, I want to play. Was bad enough when I played WoW.)
Starcraft 2 had the same damn problem, it took them 9 months to fix their service UI. I only really played custom games and their custom system was terrible... seriously terrible. No searching, no sorting, except by popularity. By default that meant new games NEVER show up, because they are not popular... because no one has played them, so they never show up, so no one can play them because they cannot find them. They are 5000 clicks back through pages and pages of maps no one plays because they arn't popular.
But this isn't about starcraft 2 :p so i'll leave it to one paragraph.
Diablo 3's mechanics are great... the loot system is a little drawn out.. and the difficulty curve.... is fucking nuts.
Flat as a board until you hit a small mountain at nightmare... then a straight cliff at hell... then some how you are on the fucking ceiling in inferno.
As for the story... its... mediocre. They need to get some real writers at blizzard. Who ever wrote Diablo 1 and 2 knew what they were doing with the "less is more" mentality. But for D3 they decided to fill it full of terrible writing, horrible characterization, and even worse plot.
The fourth time Asmodeus taunted me after i'd just whipped his arse.... made me just facepalm hard enough to crack my skull. After I got back from the hospital I mentioned to my friend "Everything is predictable, everything... and I know there has to be a twist because you fight diablo later..." And then proceeded to mention what the best twist would be.... and then an hour later I find out that my mocking prediction was true.
If we had spoiler tags i'd share it, but I'm not going to be a dick. Lets just say, mother of the new Diablo :P
As for the rest of the writing.. some of it isn't bad, but mostly the good comes from the history, what was already written. The new stuff, the dialog, the plot twists, the plot itself makes me cry a little.
The feeling from the world wasn't terrible, but the acts themselves annoyed me a little... it felt like they completely reused stuff they had done before. Act 1 felt like darkshire from Wow followed by the hinterlands... act 2 felt like act 2 of diablo 2, act 3 felt like act 5 of diablo 2 LOD, act 4 felt like StarCraft 2.
The companions also made me facepalm. Their entire existence, is there to give you a feeling of not being alone. They do almost no damage, their DPS reduced by a factor of 10. Their abilities are mostly useless. And worse, their dialog is solely there to compliment the player. And I mean that in the sickly sweet way, the next time I hear "You Inspire me!" I'm going to take the templar out back and shoot him. (he at least has a heal that can help in a pinch.)
Seriously, Their sole purpose is to stroke the player's ego. A bit ago, I died 4 times against an elite monster in nightmare... and on the 4th run back my moronic templar said that line, "You Inspire me!" and I'm thinking "I've just lost, horribly, utterly gutted by this little monster, repeatedly.... and I inspire you? Really?" Perhaps it was the frustration talking, but I was just sick of it. I can't even remember the rest of the sicky sweet compliments the morons spew all over you. And the wizard is bad enough, insufferable ego as if he had never failed in his life.... I kept waiting for him to say "oh? murder all the prime evils? yawn walk in the park! I'll take care of it after my nap." Use some fucking gravitas guys! Make me feel as if the world is at least in a bit of peril.
Next complaint, loot, oh god the loot... I found one unique.. er sorry I mean legendary... it was okay, slightly better than a high end rare i'd found. But out of all the hours i've pumped in, a single legendary. And i've got atleast 50% magic find on my highest level character now... The white drops are just clutter mostly, why even have them in the game past act 1 normal? They are uselss, you can't even sell them for more than 10g while even at lvl 1, everything costs at least 1000g. The economy scale is ridiculous, I sell a rare, and get 5% of the price it would cost me to buy it! diablo 2 it was some where between 20% and 50%, canno't remember exactly. But no, they are trying to scale the game for real money trading... You want to buy phat loot? well get 1,000,000g at a minimum.
Class balance... is non existent. Demon hunters have terrible abilities mostly, they are not the amazon from D2, nor rogue from d1... they have alot of useless abilities and are clunky to play compared to say the polished class that is the Monk... Playing that is smooth, every action flows from one to the next, every ability has a usecase and makes sense. The wizard is somewhere in the middle, almost all abilities have a use and their actions flow fairly well. I havn't played a barbarian yet, so I won't speak to that... and Witchdoctor I only played in the beta. It felt like a bolt on to me.. lots of silly ideas thrown together.
But all that aside, I am having fun... I am enjoying the challenge past normal. And I am getting that little joygasm every time I get an awesome item. Also the UI isn't bad, everything fits where it should be... and the loot display makes it fairly easy to determine which piece of gear is truly an upgrade. Though I wish you could have just 2 or 3 more abilities on your bar. (if you havn't turned on elective mode, do it... )
As for the service attached to Diablo 3? Its an MMO service without an MMO. Its strange, its new, and I don't really care for it much. Especially so with the downtime. They should have left singleplayer, yes cheating has always been a big problem for blizzard games, but it was never a real problem until they brought in the real money auction house. And now they have crippled their game.
(Right now, its down for 8 hours so they can run scheduled maintenance. Fuck you blizzard, this is my time off, I want to play. Was bad enough when I played WoW.)
Starcraft 2 had the same damn problem, it took them 9 months to fix their service UI. I only really played custom games and their custom system was terrible... seriously terrible. No searching, no sorting, except by popularity. By default that meant new games NEVER show up, because they are not popular... because no one has played them, so they never show up, so no one can play them because they cannot find them. They are 5000 clicks back through pages and pages of maps no one plays because they arn't popular.
But this isn't about starcraft 2 :p so i'll leave it to one paragraph.
Service vs Singleplayer Rant (Diablo 3 feat.)
General | Posted 13 years agooriginal: https://plus.google.com/u/0/1044413.....ts/T3gd1HwtY7J
About a decade and a half ago, when I was just getting interested in video game design, I said something. It was something along the lines of "The future of games is going to be a service model, its the only way to prevent piracy and milk money from a franchise without pissing off your customers."
I had been playing Everquest Online Adventures (the PS2 everquest release), also the space game Diaspora (a micro-mmo). I truly was fascinated by the genera, it was new, interesting, and seemed foolproof.
Blizzard learned that lesson too, after World of Warcraft, they stuck with the service model. Even starcraft 2 is essentially MMO architecture with a simulated single player game attached. Diablo 3 has taken it a step farther, not just MMO architecture, but everything is multiplayer, singleplayer is just a closed instance.
However, blizzard lost something, they forgot that a service needs to also not piss off your customers, you need to market the service, not the game. With an MMO, you are marketing a multiplayer game, a community. With Diablo 3, you are marketing... an auction house?
Traditionally Diablo 1 and 2 were singleplayer games, the people who love the game, largly, played it singleplayer. There certainly were many who played multiplayer (I was one of them) But I also played it singleplayer, or over LAN quite often. Infact, in the later days of Diablo 2, I only played modded variants over LAN or single player. I havn't touched battle.net in 6 years or more.
If you are going to make a game that is tied to a service... make the service first priority and the game second. Blizzard did not for starcraft 2, and it took them 8 months to fix battle.net 2... nor did they for diablo 3 and so the multiplayer aspect exists, is the center, but is a joke and since singleplayer is multiplayer without other players... it too is a joke.
In a few weeks or months i'm sure they will fix it, but if starcraft 2 is an example, it will take them a long time to get it right. (I quit sc2 after 5 months of waiting for them to fix the custom map interface code, I ONLY played custom maps, and created custom maps.)
Wow would be rubbish without the multiplayer, everquest would be rubbish without the multiplayer, Diaspora would have been rubbish without the multiplayer. Look at all the service games you play, and ask yourself how fun they would be without the service, without the other players, without community.
If your game is better with players than without, it deserves to be a service, if it would be better singleplayer than the crappy service code you shoved down the buyer's throats... then you should be kicked in the ass.
Multiplayer roguelikes are commonplace, they are a tried and true genera. They are NOT however a service, if you want them to be a service, you are going to have to rework the genera... blizzard failed.
I'll be playing torchlight 2 and possibly Path of Exile :p
About a decade and a half ago, when I was just getting interested in video game design, I said something. It was something along the lines of "The future of games is going to be a service model, its the only way to prevent piracy and milk money from a franchise without pissing off your customers."
I had been playing Everquest Online Adventures (the PS2 everquest release), also the space game Diaspora (a micro-mmo). I truly was fascinated by the genera, it was new, interesting, and seemed foolproof.
Blizzard learned that lesson too, after World of Warcraft, they stuck with the service model. Even starcraft 2 is essentially MMO architecture with a simulated single player game attached. Diablo 3 has taken it a step farther, not just MMO architecture, but everything is multiplayer, singleplayer is just a closed instance.
However, blizzard lost something, they forgot that a service needs to also not piss off your customers, you need to market the service, not the game. With an MMO, you are marketing a multiplayer game, a community. With Diablo 3, you are marketing... an auction house?
Traditionally Diablo 1 and 2 were singleplayer games, the people who love the game, largly, played it singleplayer. There certainly were many who played multiplayer (I was one of them) But I also played it singleplayer, or over LAN quite often. Infact, in the later days of Diablo 2, I only played modded variants over LAN or single player. I havn't touched battle.net in 6 years or more.
If you are going to make a game that is tied to a service... make the service first priority and the game second. Blizzard did not for starcraft 2, and it took them 8 months to fix battle.net 2... nor did they for diablo 3 and so the multiplayer aspect exists, is the center, but is a joke and since singleplayer is multiplayer without other players... it too is a joke.
In a few weeks or months i'm sure they will fix it, but if starcraft 2 is an example, it will take them a long time to get it right. (I quit sc2 after 5 months of waiting for them to fix the custom map interface code, I ONLY played custom maps, and created custom maps.)
Wow would be rubbish without the multiplayer, everquest would be rubbish without the multiplayer, Diaspora would have been rubbish without the multiplayer. Look at all the service games you play, and ask yourself how fun they would be without the service, without the other players, without community.
If your game is better with players than without, it deserves to be a service, if it would be better singleplayer than the crappy service code you shoved down the buyer's throats... then you should be kicked in the ass.
Multiplayer roguelikes are commonplace, they are a tried and true genera. They are NOT however a service, if you want them to be a service, you are going to have to rework the genera... blizzard failed.
I'll be playing torchlight 2 and possibly Path of Exile :p
As of Today...
General | Posted 13 years agoI am giving up all things perverse and depraved. I will no longer be making furry, demon, or scalie genitalia, only human. I am shutting down all my perverted groups as they are an affront against my God.
You are all damned.
Thank You.
You are all damned.
Thank You.
And with that...
General | Posted 13 years agoEverything in my secondlife marketplace has been moved over to the new direct system. It took about 3 hours, but i suppose it might be worth it in the long run.
I also added the Bag-O-Dicks to the marketplace ^.~
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/.....-vulva/3314157
I guess I can go delete my horrid magic box now :p
I also added the Bag-O-Dicks to the marketplace ^.~
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/.....-vulva/3314157
I guess I can go delete my horrid magic box now :p
Another Rant... iPad 3 and other tablet devices
General | Posted 13 years agooriginal here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104441386868315873040/posts/gy6L18u84ZS
I just read this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/20.....st-pc-era.html and it bothered me.
What the hell is wrong with our society when graphics are the end all of technology. I'm sorry, no, just no. Spending thousands of dollars on graphics for a new video game does not make the video game better, only lets the shit shine louder and clearer. The same is true for tablets and cellphones. If you don't have any guts worth using, slapping a pretty picture on the outside doesn't make it better, it just lets you see how much worse the guts are.
I've had a few chances to play with Apple's iOS. For a simple content consumption device, yes, it works okay. If you want to read, or maybe play a game of angry birds or whatever facebook game of the week is on top... sure it might work. But for the rest of us, who actually want to create, or at the very least connect with others... This device is pointless. Touch interface works alright, but only alright. My fingers are too blunt to hit the proper buttons and keys when I want to (and I have SMALL hands).
The next problem, as I mentioned, iOS. Its a nightmare of usability. There is so little customization in it, no way to make it fit to your needs. Apple's stance is "our way or the high way" really. I'm sorry but that is just insane in this day and age. They have always been skilled at making a good looking UI, but terrible at making a useful UI. Packing all of the icons, in to a static field, which the more you get the more fields you need, that is just plain stupidity.
Windows did it alright with windows 7. Their start menu search function was generally fast enough, you could type out a partial keyword and there your application would be.
Linux bash commandline has done it right as well, type out partial with auto-completion. And both have alternate ways to find your programs... menus... lists... and browsing to the exact folder if you felt like it.
Input is another problem. As I said, for consuming the device is fine, but if you want to create anything or communicate quickly... good luck. I'm a writer, I type between 80 and 100 wpm. In the past I even typed as fast as 110, but that was with one of those split in the middle keyboards. On a touch screen device that speed drops through the floor and I doubt it could ever surpass the efficiency of straight buttons. At the moment, my fingers cannot even hit a single key stroke right without having to backspace, they are just too blunt.
I will admit, i enjoy touch screen over a two button mouse any day. However, I have a 4 button mouse with scroll wheel. Maybe with an attached keyboard and mouse I might be able to write and program on the device, and only if I had something to prop it up. But then... how is it any different from a desktop or a laptop? Oh right, it's not as powerful.
I own an android device to consume on, i read with it, I occasionally IM and email (it has a physical keyboard... which I can use my thumbs on easily enough) But I'll never sacrifice my desktop for such a device.
The other big issue i've had. Multitasking. I get bored, easily, I have two monitors, with dozens of things open at once, and constantly swap between them. Ending one application (or suspending it) to use another is asinine. Many times I come back to another application when it alerts me that some one or something needs my attention. If it is suspended or closed, that is unlikely to happen. Not to mention there is no proper task switching or 'exit' method that is easy to use. Plus a single dinky screen is too small for me.
All in all, Apple, you're stupid, Microsoft, you're even dumber (at least apple is keeping Mac OS X and not sacrificing it for iOS like Microsoft is attempting in Windows 8)
/ #ranting
I just read this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/20.....st-pc-era.html and it bothered me.
What the hell is wrong with our society when graphics are the end all of technology. I'm sorry, no, just no. Spending thousands of dollars on graphics for a new video game does not make the video game better, only lets the shit shine louder and clearer. The same is true for tablets and cellphones. If you don't have any guts worth using, slapping a pretty picture on the outside doesn't make it better, it just lets you see how much worse the guts are.
I've had a few chances to play with Apple's iOS. For a simple content consumption device, yes, it works okay. If you want to read, or maybe play a game of angry birds or whatever facebook game of the week is on top... sure it might work. But for the rest of us, who actually want to create, or at the very least connect with others... This device is pointless. Touch interface works alright, but only alright. My fingers are too blunt to hit the proper buttons and keys when I want to (and I have SMALL hands).
The next problem, as I mentioned, iOS. Its a nightmare of usability. There is so little customization in it, no way to make it fit to your needs. Apple's stance is "our way or the high way" really. I'm sorry but that is just insane in this day and age. They have always been skilled at making a good looking UI, but terrible at making a useful UI. Packing all of the icons, in to a static field, which the more you get the more fields you need, that is just plain stupidity.
Windows did it alright with windows 7. Their start menu search function was generally fast enough, you could type out a partial keyword and there your application would be.
Linux bash commandline has done it right as well, type out partial with auto-completion. And both have alternate ways to find your programs... menus... lists... and browsing to the exact folder if you felt like it.
Input is another problem. As I said, for consuming the device is fine, but if you want to create anything or communicate quickly... good luck. I'm a writer, I type between 80 and 100 wpm. In the past I even typed as fast as 110, but that was with one of those split in the middle keyboards. On a touch screen device that speed drops through the floor and I doubt it could ever surpass the efficiency of straight buttons. At the moment, my fingers cannot even hit a single key stroke right without having to backspace, they are just too blunt.
I will admit, i enjoy touch screen over a two button mouse any day. However, I have a 4 button mouse with scroll wheel. Maybe with an attached keyboard and mouse I might be able to write and program on the device, and only if I had something to prop it up. But then... how is it any different from a desktop or a laptop? Oh right, it's not as powerful.
I own an android device to consume on, i read with it, I occasionally IM and email (it has a physical keyboard... which I can use my thumbs on easily enough) But I'll never sacrifice my desktop for such a device.
The other big issue i've had. Multitasking. I get bored, easily, I have two monitors, with dozens of things open at once, and constantly swap between them. Ending one application (or suspending it) to use another is asinine. Many times I come back to another application when it alerts me that some one or something needs my attention. If it is suspended or closed, that is unlikely to happen. Not to mention there is no proper task switching or 'exit' method that is easy to use. Plus a single dinky screen is too small for me.
All in all, Apple, you're stupid, Microsoft, you're even dumber (at least apple is keeping Mac OS X and not sacrificing it for iOS like Microsoft is attempting in Windows 8)
/ #ranting
Desires of Demons part 1
General | Posted 14 years agoI have re-uploaded Desires of Demons part 1.
I went back and did some heavy modification, expanding many parts of the story I felt needed better explination, and deleting a few paragraphs that were just bad. Almost every single paragraph has been touched in one way or another.
If you like the story, go back please and re-read it... I feel it should be far far better than it was previously.
I went back and did some heavy modification, expanding many parts of the story I felt needed better explination, and deleting a few paragraphs that were just bad. Almost every single paragraph has been touched in one way or another.
If you like the story, go back please and re-read it... I feel it should be far far better than it was previously.
I'm back....
General | Posted 14 years agoOriginally posted on G+ at: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104441386868315873040/posts/CbFum83m94Q
And now the rant.
#verizoncustomersupportsucks
We moved. We acquired the new place on the 11th. We called Verizon asking them to transfer our service to the new house. Said they would do it on the 13th probably, maybe.
That night, at 3am, our internet shut off. While I was writing messages telling people I was moving, of course, my mother didn't recieve hers.
Well, phone was transferred some time within that week. It didn't work, no one could call in. A few days later, and a handful of calls later, it starts working... no big hassle.
Within that week, we also get our network some what setup, and go to use the internet... the phone was working, so obviously the internet must be too. They both come over the fiber-optic line that runs in to the ONT under the deck.
Nope, Chuck Testa.
The RJ45 jack is dead as a zombie's tit.
Oh and keep in mind, buisness service is only available 9-5 monday through friday. We find this out on the following friday night/saturday morning.
We call, they try and tell us we don't have FiOS service. This is rather disturbing, since its on our bill, of which we pay over 250$ for the buisness line with multiple static IP addresses. They do a little deeper looking, and they find the transfer request... some how the person who inputted it, canceled our fios service.
So this guy, says hes going to reinstate it, (mind you, its been a week since we moved). He says a guy will be out on tuseday or Wednesday. Then proceeds to forget/fail to save the service order request. (at least, that is what the guy, not next but the third after tells us.) on wednesday after he doesn't show up, we get pissed, call them again... are up until almost 2 am trying to get the internet working... because supposedly they provisioned us.... they didn't. This guy schedules for friday. Again, guy doesn't show up. And again, this assdyke forgot/failed to save the service order.
Just a little information for you. an ONT can be configured from the home server. You do not need to go out and physically configure it... hell, even the pins for the serial terminal are not soldered on. The only reason they send a tech to your house, is to either install the ONT, or teach idiots how to plug their computer in and turn it on. Then they need to actually provision you with internet, specifically how much data you can transmit in either direction. In our case, we are provisioned for 35/35 mbps, about 4 megabytes per second. (As I said, business line)
I call on friday, 2 weeks after they shut us off at the old place, about 4:10pm, just under an hour before they close. Talk to some one mildly useful. I'm just trying to get hold of some one who can switch us on. Not send a damn tech out, not sit on their thumbs and spin. This person knows what she is talking about, she doesn't know everything, shes not a network manager, just tech support... but she knows enough to be helpful... But its billing who has to actually allow them to turn us on... billing has to say "yep, they are paying, they are authorized for 35/35." to some unknown internal entity.
Eventually I get passed off to a woman in billing. She knows nothing, she wants to go home, its 4:55pm. She says we should be good, and tries to pass me off to that unknown entity. An unroutable number... an internal number... some one SHE is supposed to talk to, supposed to tell, to turn us on.
The phone disconnects saying I'm not allowed to connect to that number.
Its 5:02 pm.
I call back... the office is closed.
I call residential (which is open 6 days a week, 24 hours a day). They of course are not allowed to handle business accounts, they can do nothing for me. I want only one thing. I want a complaint department, I want a department head, I want to make some one's ears bleed.
The residential tech support person, feeling helpless, and rather apologetic, offers to transfer me to the complaint department. I find this idea fitting, so I agree whole heartedly. 5 minutes pass. She comes back, apologizing more, she cannot seem to find the button for complaints department. It seems, they have removed the complaints department. It no longer exists. I ask to be elevated. She passes me off to her floor manager.
Now this woman, this managerial waste of air. She is a walking stereotype. I could hear her nails clicking on a desk top, she was bringing her queen bitch attitude to full bore. She spews a line of bullshit at me a mile long about what a tech needs to come out for, why I cannot just have my internet I am paying for turned on, why I cannot speak to anyone higher up. Except I already know more about anything technologically related than she ever could. I know how an ONT works, I know what actually needs to be done.
Finally, after a few minutes of her raving inane bullshit, I get her to shut up, I start spewing my own filth, primarily involving real facts, real knowledge. I catch her in her own lie, I get her to admit she doesn't actually know anything about it.
But still, she will do nothing for me... Except... she offers to file a complaint on my behalf... I am not capable apparently of filing a complaint, but she, some how, has the power to provide this mightiest of swords... which I would be highly surprised to find she actually did. More likely she just wanted me off the phone.
Monday morning, 9 am, I wake up to a phone call which I miss... 20 minutes later the verizon tech is at the door. He looks at the ONT, does nothing to it, closes it up again. Asks if we have our router hooked up or not.
I point out that we have an enterprise level server rack, with two fire wall/routers all setup, ready and waiting for just a few juicy bits of internet... But they were not quite configured right (they changed our static IP's in the move... even though they promised they wouldn't need to)
We hook up the old verizon access point, it works, we have wifi... the peasants rejoiced.
One reboot of the firewalls, and a replacement cat6 cable for the DNS server later... and the house is humming with flowing bits bytes and porn (After all, thats what the internet is for, right?)
Oh, and the tech admited; nothing had to be done to the ONT. Then as he was leaving, thanked us for the easiest job he would have all day.
TL;DR Fuck Verizon.
And now the rant.
#verizoncustomersupportsucks
We moved. We acquired the new place on the 11th. We called Verizon asking them to transfer our service to the new house. Said they would do it on the 13th probably, maybe.
That night, at 3am, our internet shut off. While I was writing messages telling people I was moving, of course, my mother didn't recieve hers.
Well, phone was transferred some time within that week. It didn't work, no one could call in. A few days later, and a handful of calls later, it starts working... no big hassle.
Within that week, we also get our network some what setup, and go to use the internet... the phone was working, so obviously the internet must be too. They both come over the fiber-optic line that runs in to the ONT under the deck.
Nope, Chuck Testa.
The RJ45 jack is dead as a zombie's tit.
Oh and keep in mind, buisness service is only available 9-5 monday through friday. We find this out on the following friday night/saturday morning.
We call, they try and tell us we don't have FiOS service. This is rather disturbing, since its on our bill, of which we pay over 250$ for the buisness line with multiple static IP addresses. They do a little deeper looking, and they find the transfer request... some how the person who inputted it, canceled our fios service.
So this guy, says hes going to reinstate it, (mind you, its been a week since we moved). He says a guy will be out on tuseday or Wednesday. Then proceeds to forget/fail to save the service order request. (at least, that is what the guy, not next but the third after tells us.) on wednesday after he doesn't show up, we get pissed, call them again... are up until almost 2 am trying to get the internet working... because supposedly they provisioned us.... they didn't. This guy schedules for friday. Again, guy doesn't show up. And again, this assdyke forgot/failed to save the service order.
Just a little information for you. an ONT can be configured from the home server. You do not need to go out and physically configure it... hell, even the pins for the serial terminal are not soldered on. The only reason they send a tech to your house, is to either install the ONT, or teach idiots how to plug their computer in and turn it on. Then they need to actually provision you with internet, specifically how much data you can transmit in either direction. In our case, we are provisioned for 35/35 mbps, about 4 megabytes per second. (As I said, business line)
I call on friday, 2 weeks after they shut us off at the old place, about 4:10pm, just under an hour before they close. Talk to some one mildly useful. I'm just trying to get hold of some one who can switch us on. Not send a damn tech out, not sit on their thumbs and spin. This person knows what she is talking about, she doesn't know everything, shes not a network manager, just tech support... but she knows enough to be helpful... But its billing who has to actually allow them to turn us on... billing has to say "yep, they are paying, they are authorized for 35/35." to some unknown internal entity.
Eventually I get passed off to a woman in billing. She knows nothing, she wants to go home, its 4:55pm. She says we should be good, and tries to pass me off to that unknown entity. An unroutable number... an internal number... some one SHE is supposed to talk to, supposed to tell, to turn us on.
The phone disconnects saying I'm not allowed to connect to that number.
Its 5:02 pm.
I call back... the office is closed.
I call residential (which is open 6 days a week, 24 hours a day). They of course are not allowed to handle business accounts, they can do nothing for me. I want only one thing. I want a complaint department, I want a department head, I want to make some one's ears bleed.
The residential tech support person, feeling helpless, and rather apologetic, offers to transfer me to the complaint department. I find this idea fitting, so I agree whole heartedly. 5 minutes pass. She comes back, apologizing more, she cannot seem to find the button for complaints department. It seems, they have removed the complaints department. It no longer exists. I ask to be elevated. She passes me off to her floor manager.
Now this woman, this managerial waste of air. She is a walking stereotype. I could hear her nails clicking on a desk top, she was bringing her queen bitch attitude to full bore. She spews a line of bullshit at me a mile long about what a tech needs to come out for, why I cannot just have my internet I am paying for turned on, why I cannot speak to anyone higher up. Except I already know more about anything technologically related than she ever could. I know how an ONT works, I know what actually needs to be done.
Finally, after a few minutes of her raving inane bullshit, I get her to shut up, I start spewing my own filth, primarily involving real facts, real knowledge. I catch her in her own lie, I get her to admit she doesn't actually know anything about it.
But still, she will do nothing for me... Except... she offers to file a complaint on my behalf... I am not capable apparently of filing a complaint, but she, some how, has the power to provide this mightiest of swords... which I would be highly surprised to find she actually did. More likely she just wanted me off the phone.
Monday morning, 9 am, I wake up to a phone call which I miss... 20 minutes later the verizon tech is at the door. He looks at the ONT, does nothing to it, closes it up again. Asks if we have our router hooked up or not.
I point out that we have an enterprise level server rack, with two fire wall/routers all setup, ready and waiting for just a few juicy bits of internet... But they were not quite configured right (they changed our static IP's in the move... even though they promised they wouldn't need to)
We hook up the old verizon access point, it works, we have wifi... the peasants rejoiced.
One reboot of the firewalls, and a replacement cat6 cable for the DNS server later... and the house is humming with flowing bits bytes and porn (After all, thats what the internet is for, right?)
Oh, and the tech admited; nothing had to be done to the ONT. Then as he was leaving, thanked us for the easiest job he would have all day.
TL;DR Fuck Verizon.
Fuck Advertisements
General | Posted 14 years agofirst posted here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/1044413.....ts/gaYryascdWf
Advertisement.
I hate you, so much.
At its core, it isn't such a bad concept. Tell people who will probably want your product or service about it, so that they get what they want.
But in implementation it has become something of a monster.
The first problem is the nature of advertisement, Trying to convince people to buy things that they don't need, whether they want it or not. This at it's core is mind-control and a severe form of manipulation. In my opinion its un-ethical when it is done without explicit permission.
A EULA does not count!
If I order your magazine, that is explicit permission.
If I /request/ your email notifications of hot deals, that is permission.
If you find my email or address somewhere on the web, and sell it to another corporation, who then uses it to bombard me with trivial bullshit. THAT IS NOT PERMISSION.
The second problem with it, is brand recognition and propaganda. "Our brand is better, because its not their brand." Every few days I hear the "Coke vs Pepsi" debate, somewhere on the internet, or offline.
This is a false ideology, this is tribal warfare for the sake of taking your money.
Is one better than the other? No. (for which I will be harassed, I know it.)
Are they significantly different? No.
Are the corporation's particularly different in their behaviors? No.
The third problem, and probably the most troublesome. Advertisements have become more complex, heavier, and more technically invasive. At first it was just a link, and maybe a static image. Perhaps a bit big, but frequently unobtrusive. But as the web grew, there came Geocities and the atrocity that was animated gifs (Yes I know geocities had nothing to do with animated gifs...but anyone who was a web resident in those dark days should remember the horror. For all you youngins out there, here is a far subdued taste: http://www.lingscars.com/ )
Then came javascript and embedded Java applets. A java applet would frequently crash browsers or an entire computer because it didn't know when to stop gobbling resources.
Back in those days ctrl+alt+delete did not bring up task manager usually, instead the computer would just hang, so you had to salute again to reboot. Talk about a pain in the arse.
But a few -months- seconds in to that hell came the first drive by trojans.
And the face of the web changed forever.
Flash just added to the problem, replacing java applets with an even more insecure format.
Then javascript became more robust, more powerful, and suddenly internet explorer was a minefield. Going on the web was taking your computer's life in to your own hands. I switched to FreeBSD at that point for a while (But that is a story for another day.)
Today I surf with adblock+ and noscript turned on, at all times. Internet explorer is a great browser to go download an alternative. I stayed on firefox for quite a while until it started becoming the target; I was waiting for adblock+ and noscript to emerge on chrome.
Now I'm on chrome, and I'm just waiting for the target to be fully acquired and require me switching to something else. In this game you cannot win against malice unless you keep changing, keep evolving. The moment you stop changing is the moment you have to -reinstall- nuke your operating system from orbit, because its the only way to be sure.
There are many people who try to say not to use adblock because the sites you visit need money. My counter to that is, the site needs money? it should find a way to pay for itself without harassing its customers and putting their lives at risk.
This is my way of voting with my wallet, if enough people block a site's ads, eventually the site will have to find a new source of income. It hasn't worked yet, but doesn't mean I wont stop trying. If one or two sites fall over due to being unable to keep up with the changing environment, well, that's just too bad.
And in summation; You wouldn't fuck a diseased crack whore without a condom, don't surf the web without proper precautions.
Advertisement.
I hate you, so much.
At its core, it isn't such a bad concept. Tell people who will probably want your product or service about it, so that they get what they want.
But in implementation it has become something of a monster.
The first problem is the nature of advertisement, Trying to convince people to buy things that they don't need, whether they want it or not. This at it's core is mind-control and a severe form of manipulation. In my opinion its un-ethical when it is done without explicit permission.
A EULA does not count!
If I order your magazine, that is explicit permission.
If I /request/ your email notifications of hot deals, that is permission.
If you find my email or address somewhere on the web, and sell it to another corporation, who then uses it to bombard me with trivial bullshit. THAT IS NOT PERMISSION.
The second problem with it, is brand recognition and propaganda. "Our brand is better, because its not their brand." Every few days I hear the "Coke vs Pepsi" debate, somewhere on the internet, or offline.
This is a false ideology, this is tribal warfare for the sake of taking your money.
Is one better than the other? No. (for which I will be harassed, I know it.)
Are they significantly different? No.
Are the corporation's particularly different in their behaviors? No.
The third problem, and probably the most troublesome. Advertisements have become more complex, heavier, and more technically invasive. At first it was just a link, and maybe a static image. Perhaps a bit big, but frequently unobtrusive. But as the web grew, there came Geocities and the atrocity that was animated gifs (Yes I know geocities had nothing to do with animated gifs...but anyone who was a web resident in those dark days should remember the horror. For all you youngins out there, here is a far subdued taste: http://www.lingscars.com/ )
Then came javascript and embedded Java applets. A java applet would frequently crash browsers or an entire computer because it didn't know when to stop gobbling resources.
Back in those days ctrl+alt+delete did not bring up task manager usually, instead the computer would just hang, so you had to salute again to reboot. Talk about a pain in the arse.
But a few -months- seconds in to that hell came the first drive by trojans.
And the face of the web changed forever.
Flash just added to the problem, replacing java applets with an even more insecure format.
Then javascript became more robust, more powerful, and suddenly internet explorer was a minefield. Going on the web was taking your computer's life in to your own hands. I switched to FreeBSD at that point for a while (But that is a story for another day.)
Today I surf with adblock+ and noscript turned on, at all times. Internet explorer is a great browser to go download an alternative. I stayed on firefox for quite a while until it started becoming the target; I was waiting for adblock+ and noscript to emerge on chrome.
Now I'm on chrome, and I'm just waiting for the target to be fully acquired and require me switching to something else. In this game you cannot win against malice unless you keep changing, keep evolving. The moment you stop changing is the moment you have to -reinstall- nuke your operating system from orbit, because its the only way to be sure.
There are many people who try to say not to use adblock because the sites you visit need money. My counter to that is, the site needs money? it should find a way to pay for itself without harassing its customers and putting their lives at risk.
This is my way of voting with my wallet, if enough people block a site's ads, eventually the site will have to find a new source of income. It hasn't worked yet, but doesn't mean I wont stop trying. If one or two sites fall over due to being unable to keep up with the changing environment, well, that's just too bad.
And in summation; You wouldn't fuck a diseased crack whore without a condom, don't surf the web without proper precautions.
A copyright proposal
General | Posted 14 years agoI have a proposal.
(originally posted on G+) https://plus.google.com/u/0/1044413.....ts/hVBSHNKuP7x
Share, counter, and comment as you like!
Copyrights, they need to change.
Once, it was 29 years, that was too long.
Then companies like Disney came along and said "We want the copyrights to last longer" Then it was 75 years. Then it became 75 years AFTER death.
Now copyright is so bungled, everything is illegal to touch, to edit, even to parody is becoming threatened.
How many parodies have you seen taken down on youtube? illegally or legally, its a constant battle between content creators and copyright trolls.
My proposal is thus:
* Copyright only lasts 15 years.
* Copyright nullifies on death.
* Copyright is permissible but not transferable.
* If you sign a contract /before/ the work is created saying that said work belongs to another. Then, and only then is the rights transferred.
* Group ownership of a copyright, either under a corporate/group lable, or with multiple Signatures.
* Copyright Suits can only be executed by the actual owner, and not third parties or people with copy-permissions.
* Copy for Parody, learning, teaching, and non-profit is protected as fair use.
In Elaboration:
Copyright should be a short duration, 15 years is more than enough time to make money off of your work. And plenty of time to produce another masterpiece.
Once the original creator is dead, the copyright should be nullified, and the material left in the public domain. This allows and enforces innovation instead of sitting on a copyright just to make money off the rights.
Copyrights should not be transferable after the work is created, However permission to copy can be bestowed for an agreed upon time. This allows an author to create a piece, send it to a publisher, get it published. But stops corporations and other persons from buying the rights to another piece of work and strangling the original creator with that contract.
For many companies, ownership of the copyright should be laid down in the contract they sign when joining the company. Say if you are working for a large corporation on the next big software. Your work belongs to the company and you are paid in compensation. If you try to sell that outside of work, you are breaking contract, and breaking the copyrights.
For open source, non-profit, and other group, non-corporate projects, the copyright owner could be a registered group. It might have a president of the group, or a co-op voting system... just so long as they can be proven to be a part of that group and represent its interests. Or the copyright might have multiple names on it, and each one granted equal rights.
Copyright trolls should be thrown on the pyre. They produce nothing and help no one. Lawsuits must be undertaken by the copyright owner. If they sign a contract with a law firm to uphold their interests, that contract is outside of the lawsuit, and the award would go to the owner, not the law firm. If the owner breaks that contract, then of course, they would be sued. And being sued by a law firm is generally bad mojo. Just because you have permission to copy a work, does not give you right to prevent others from copying it. So a publisher cannot sue another publisher, however if the contract stipulated exclusive publishing rights, then they would sue the content creator.
Fair use has been a haven in this dark times, and it should only be expanded. As the Swiss determined, piracy does not hurt the content creators very much if at all. The same amount of money was spent on entertainment, whether they pirated or not, the pirate simply was more entertained than the non pirate. Also, copyright is not theft and should NEVER be treated as theft. Theft implies taking something of which denies the owner, or another person of it. Copying should be permissible for non-profit and education, and parody/criticism. The only one of the 3 that can make money on it, would be parody/criticism, and whether it is or isn't, should be left up to the judge involved.
And that was just my far too wordy 0.02 BTC
oh and as for Patents? Fuck em. File it under copyright law.
(originally posted on G+) https://plus.google.com/u/0/1044413.....ts/hVBSHNKuP7x
Share, counter, and comment as you like!
Copyrights, they need to change.
Once, it was 29 years, that was too long.
Then companies like Disney came along and said "We want the copyrights to last longer" Then it was 75 years. Then it became 75 years AFTER death.
Now copyright is so bungled, everything is illegal to touch, to edit, even to parody is becoming threatened.
How many parodies have you seen taken down on youtube? illegally or legally, its a constant battle between content creators and copyright trolls.
My proposal is thus:
* Copyright only lasts 15 years.
* Copyright nullifies on death.
* Copyright is permissible but not transferable.
* If you sign a contract /before/ the work is created saying that said work belongs to another. Then, and only then is the rights transferred.
* Group ownership of a copyright, either under a corporate/group lable, or with multiple Signatures.
* Copyright Suits can only be executed by the actual owner, and not third parties or people with copy-permissions.
* Copy for Parody, learning, teaching, and non-profit is protected as fair use.
In Elaboration:
Copyright should be a short duration, 15 years is more than enough time to make money off of your work. And plenty of time to produce another masterpiece.
Once the original creator is dead, the copyright should be nullified, and the material left in the public domain. This allows and enforces innovation instead of sitting on a copyright just to make money off the rights.
Copyrights should not be transferable after the work is created, However permission to copy can be bestowed for an agreed upon time. This allows an author to create a piece, send it to a publisher, get it published. But stops corporations and other persons from buying the rights to another piece of work and strangling the original creator with that contract.
For many companies, ownership of the copyright should be laid down in the contract they sign when joining the company. Say if you are working for a large corporation on the next big software. Your work belongs to the company and you are paid in compensation. If you try to sell that outside of work, you are breaking contract, and breaking the copyrights.
For open source, non-profit, and other group, non-corporate projects, the copyright owner could be a registered group. It might have a president of the group, or a co-op voting system... just so long as they can be proven to be a part of that group and represent its interests. Or the copyright might have multiple names on it, and each one granted equal rights.
Copyright trolls should be thrown on the pyre. They produce nothing and help no one. Lawsuits must be undertaken by the copyright owner. If they sign a contract with a law firm to uphold their interests, that contract is outside of the lawsuit, and the award would go to the owner, not the law firm. If the owner breaks that contract, then of course, they would be sued. And being sued by a law firm is generally bad mojo. Just because you have permission to copy a work, does not give you right to prevent others from copying it. So a publisher cannot sue another publisher, however if the contract stipulated exclusive publishing rights, then they would sue the content creator.
Fair use has been a haven in this dark times, and it should only be expanded. As the Swiss determined, piracy does not hurt the content creators very much if at all. The same amount of money was spent on entertainment, whether they pirated or not, the pirate simply was more entertained than the non pirate. Also, copyright is not theft and should NEVER be treated as theft. Theft implies taking something of which denies the owner, or another person of it. Copying should be permissible for non-profit and education, and parody/criticism. The only one of the 3 that can make money on it, would be parody/criticism, and whether it is or isn't, should be left up to the judge involved.
And that was just my far too wordy 0.02 BTC
oh and as for Patents? Fuck em. File it under copyright law.
Minecraft 1.0.1
General | Posted 14 years agoSo, we decided to host a 1.0.1 server. Its up, its running alright on its little VM (a bit slow, but not too bad)
if anyone wants to join its at echidna.chaoticrealms.net
(note there is also an irc.chaoticrealms.net and one of the VMs on that box is the echidna irc server :p)
were using Rei's minimap and Smart Moving mods, so if you want em, grab em.
once runecraft is updated we will be adding that too.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic.....-smart-moving/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic.....inimap-v28-04/
if anyone wants to join its at echidna.chaoticrealms.net
(note there is also an irc.chaoticrealms.net and one of the VMs on that box is the echidna irc server :p)
were using Rei's minimap and Smart Moving mods, so if you want em, grab em.
once runecraft is updated we will be adding that too.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic.....-smart-moving/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic.....inimap-v28-04/
Happy thanksgiving!
General | Posted 14 years agoHope you all have a happy thanks giving, I'm heading off to go be with a lovely friend :D
John De Lancie
General | Posted 14 years agoSo, hes going to be in MLP... figures, but he is awesome just as he is!
john de lancie reciting Poe's "The Raven" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIckeYVuMC0
john de lancie reciting Poe's "The Raven" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIckeYVuMC0
The power is mine!
General | Posted 14 years agoAt last I have power again :D.... and now that we have air conditioning running, I'm fucking freezing. 6 days without air conditioning acclimated me. >.>
